Mr. Speaker, as members know, the IMF and the OECD praise this government and the fiscal situation that Canada is in: the best fiscal situation in the G7. This hypocritical point that the member opposite raises, after voting for the economic action plan in the best interests of the country, and to stand here now and say that the stimulus plan has not saved hundreds of thousands of jobs is outrageous.

Mr. Speaker, this borrow-and-spend government is addicted to overpriced consultants. Last fall, the Conservatives hired Greg Gormick to write two press releases. He was paid $1,200 for one and $2,200 for the other. That is $3,400 for 1,300 words.

It is also worth noting that the consultant was later given a job with the Conservative member for Peterborough.

Public servants could have prepared these press releases at a fraction of the cost.

Mr. Speaker, this reckless finance minister pretends that his spending is on track. However, his track led straight to a $56 billion deficit, the largest in Canadian history. He blew $1.3 billion on a G20 photo op and another $9.4 billion on pricey consultants. Add to this $10 billion for Republican-style mega-prisons, and more than $16 billion for untendered stealth jets.

When will the minister stop his borrowing and spending binge and show some respect for the taxpayer?

Mr. Speaker, the member, who is the finance critic for the Liberal-led coalition, when asked whether he would repeal the GST reductions in Halifax said, “Absolutely yes”. That is the party that would raise the GST by two percentage points and whose leader describes himself as a tax-and-spend Liberal.

We do not need any lessons from the Liberals about spending in Canada.

Mr. Speaker, this borrow-and-spend minister increased spending by 18% in his first three years of office. In fact, he put Canada into deficit even before the downturn. Now he is wasting billions of dollars on high-priced consultants, advertising, photo ops, and contracts for Conservative cronies.

Canadian taxpayers want these borrow-and-spend Conservatives to stop wasting their money.

Mr. Speaker, this is how much respect the Liberal finance critic has for taxpayers' money. He said neither the Liberal caucus nor the Liberal Party “has ever encountered a problem that they did not believe to be best solved by throwing copious quantities of taxpayers' money at it. They are tax and spend-aholics”.

That is what the Liberals are. They are tax-and-spend Liberals who will drive this country into deficit in a structural way.

Mr. Speaker, last summer our government committed to purchase the F-35 joint strike fighter to replace Canada's aging fleet of CF-18s. This decision was taken a full 13 years after the program was first launched. During those 13 years, a competition was held and Lockheed Martin won the contract to make the world's only fifth generation fighter available to Canada.

Would the Minister of National Defence please highlight the benefits that this decision has created for the Canadian aerospace industry and the Canadian Forces?

Mr. Speaker, the member for Westlock—St. Paul is absolutely right that the only aircraft that will meet the operational needs of the Canadian Forces for the next 30 to 40 years is the F-35. I know the Liberals opposite agree because they started the process.

Our aerospace industry has the potential to benefit from $12 billion in contracts and thousands and thousands of jobs. Seventeen years ago we know the Liberals cancelled a contract and we are seeing this happen again. We have seen the Liberal rerun of cancelling important military procurements, punishing the military and the aerospace industry.

Mr. Speaker, any apparent conflict of interest in our democratic institutions undermines public confidence. That is one of the reasons why the Conservatives promised to do things differently from the Liberals and to replace their lax approach with strict rules. Unfortunately, as Sheila Fraser reminded us yesterday, they have not always done that.

Yesterday evening, we learned that the Governor of the Bank of Canada, himself a former executive at Goldman Sachs, has hired Timothy Hodgson, the chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs Canada, for a period of 18 months. Mr. Hodgson will then be free to return to the private sector, as his contract does not include a cooling-off period.

Mr. Speaker, it is not a question of whether he severed his ties, it is a question of the revolving door back to the private sector.

As Sheila Fraser reminded us yesterday, they still have not brought in the conflict rules. They do not exist.

Goldman Sachs made billions in derivatives. Mr. Hodgson will be designing the entire architecture for the Bank of Canada in this sector and leaving with the pass codes for the alarm system.

Mark Carney finally admitted last night that he did not include any cooling-off period in Mr. Hodgson's contract.

We have tough anti-conflict rules for ministers and their staff. Is the minister willing to work rapidly with Parliament to put in place the long-promised rules to avoid the revolving door between firms such as Goldman Sachs and the Bank of Canada?

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the Auditor General for her analysis of the infrastructure program.

She said, “I would say I would give the government high marks for how they managed” this program.

She said, “I think officials deserve congratulations for rolling out such a major program quickly, without resorting to throwing [any] regulations or safeguards out”.

This program went out the door. It created hundreds of thousands of jobs in every part of this country. We are being fair and reasonable with the municipalities, but we can thank the finance minister , the former infrastructure minister and the government for making sure that this recovery has stayed in place.